


Olives for Breakfast

by Epimeliad



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Ancient Greece, Banter, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Drinking, Flirting, Historical, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epimeliad/pseuds/Epimeliad
Summary: Crawly and Aziraphale have reached a strange point in their relationship in ancient Athens. They’re not exactly enemies anymore, but they’re not exactly friends either. It’s all a bit of a tight-rope walk for a demon with a crush.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96





	Olives for Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiteleyFoster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteleyFoster/gifts).



> So, um, yeah. Apparently I write smut now.  
> This was inspired by the sweet Ancient Greece art by Whiteley Foster, but this didn’t really come out as sweet and soft as her glorious art. Oh well.

**Athens, 427 B.C.**

It’s one of the first real days of spring. The sun is shining down from a clear-blue sky and Crawly is really starting to enjoy himself. Splayed across what, strictly speaking, constitutes three seats, he maximises his body’s contact to the sun-warmed stone and lets it heat him up. He might no longer be physically cold-blooded, but old habits die hard and it is a damned nice feeling.

“Crawly, _really_?” a voice asks, only marginally disapproving, and a shadow falls across his face as Aziraphale steps into his sunshine. “That’s quite impolite, there’s barely enough seats as it is.”

This is a pleasant surprise. Well, with the emphasis on ‘pleasant’ rather than ‘surprise’, because ever since humans started building cities, the two of them have been bumping into each other more frequently; they are clearly both urban creatures. However, since Crawly moved to Athens from Babylon a century or two earlier, their relationship has taken on an almost neighbourly character.

Crawly pulls himself up, withdrawing limbs as he goes until he’s sitting up properly. “What if I said I was saving a seat for you?”

Aziraphale looks around. The Dionysos Eleuthereus Theatre fits a lot of people - thousands, actually - but there are not many seats left open. It seems that he considers this a mitigating factor.

“Best seats in the house,” Crawly adds to sweeten the deal, and pats the stone next to him. They _are_ the best seats in the house, and that was the whole point of stretching out across them.

“It would take me hours to find another seat at this rate, and it’s starting any minute now,” Aziraphale reasons by way of excuse and sits down. “I haven’t seen you here any other day of the festival, I assumed this wasn’t your cup of tea. I would have thought this is a bit too formal for your taste.”

“I have dog in the fight, as it were,” Crawly admits and waves his hand towards the judges in the front row.

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asks, genuinely interested now, catching Crawly off-guard. “Which writer, what category?”

“Uh. Philocles. It’s a tragedy, I think. Well, I hope, it’s not like I’ve read it. He’s supposed to be on today.”

“For the sake of full disclosure, I also have a _vested interest_ this year.”

“Really? Is that fair?”

“You can consider it a wile thwarted.”

“Oh shit, you’re backing Sophocles, aren’t you?” Crawly groans.

“No, no,” Aziraphale protests mildly, laughing. “He hardly needs backing, does he? He’s obviously the more talented writer, it’d take a miracle to -“ He cuts off as Crawly tilts his head meaningfully. “Now _that_ certainly seems unfair! I thought his play this year was fantastic. Unconventional, yes, but exceptionally interesting! And Philocles, really? He shouldn’t even be here, I thought it was just because he was Aeschylus’s nephew.”

“I know, perfect, isn’t it? Plausible deniability. Demonic intervention, nepotism, who’s to know? Who’re you backing then?”

“Aristophanes. For best comedy. It’s his first time, but I think he shows great promise already. He’s only twenty-one!”

“So he’s gonna win, is he?”

“Yes. Well, no. I don’t know, I certainly hope he will.”

“What? I thought you said you had a ‘vested interest’, I thought that meant that you were going to make sure he wins?”

“What? No! Certainly not, that would hardly be in the spirit of the competition. I was just part of the process, helping him with the writing, making sure he was properly inspired.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing down here? ‘Inspiring’ twenty-year-olds? Is that what you crazy kids are calling it nowadays?”

“Get your mind out of the gu-“

“Hang on,” Crawly interrupts, holding up a finger to shut Aziraphale up as he works through a realisation. “Are you his _muse_?”

Crawly smiled triumphantly at the flush climbing up Aziraphale’s neck.

“I, um, yes, I expect that to, eh, the untrained eye, the act of divine inspiration and, um, musing, would look strikingly similar, but clearly it -“

“Oh yes, I see, it’s _very_ different. Obviously I just couldn’t tell with my _untrained eyes._ ”

“It’s all perfectly respectable, thank you, no indecently draped fabrics or whispering in sleeping ears.”

“You’ve clearly given this some thought.”

“I’ve simply had some conversations with him, purely as patron to artist, mentor to -“

“I know that you know what mentors do to their students here.”

Aziraphale ignores him demonstratively by turning his full attention to the empty stage.

Crawly decides to let it drop (for now). “And here I thought you couldn’t even be here.”

“The theatre? Of course I can.”

“Yes, but the Dionysia? I thought your lot disapproved of all the pagan stuff.”

Aziraphale makes a hedging sort of sound. “Well, it’s not explicitly disapproved of as much as not formally approved of.”

Crawly raises an eyebrow. Aziraphale is clearly skirting just along the rules, possibly putting one or two toes across the line. This is behaviour he really should be encouraging, but he can’t resist pushing when he discovers a button. “I would have thought you might be uncomfortable, what with the ritual slaughter of livestock and, y’know, all the penises - “

“Yes, thank you,” Aziraphale cuts him off.

“Hang on.” Crawly leans forward theatrically and peers over the rims of his tinted glasses at the Aziraphale’s chest. “Is that a cock around your neck?”

“No, it isn’t,” Aziraphale snaps and primly pushes the charm under his formal himation robe and out of sight. “It’s a _phalloi_ and it’s fashionable.”

“Angel!” Crawly gasps and clutches at imaginary pearls.

“Stop it.”

“Are you going native, angel?”

“I am appreciating and participating in the local culture,” Aziraphale clarifies in a way that sounds far too practiced for it to be the first time he says it.

Crawly suppresses the burning urge to ask if Aziraphale’s superiors have been asking questions. Their tentative friendship is dependent on not really drawing attention to the fact that they are on opposing sides, beyond the briefest mention, like that of two supporters of rival sports teams. To ask about something so _professional_ would only draw attention to the adversarial nature of their relationship, and Crawly will not risk rocking the boat. He likes Aziraphale, and he likes that they are on friendly terms. He might even late at night entertain the notion of being on very friendly terms indeed, only to very firmly push the notion away when he is finished with it. There aren’t many other eternal beings on earth whose company he actually enjoys, and he is prepared to bite his tongue if it means preserving the agreed-upon illusion of neutrality. He knows what topics are off-limits. It does, however, remind Crawly of how little he actually knows about the angel.

* * *

The plays and ceremonies are only one part of the Dionysia festival, and definitely not the fun bit. The after-parties are where the real fun begins. Most of the dignitaries, writers and musicians spend the nights at different symposia around the city, which two out of three times end up as drunken blow-outs. But tonight Crawly isn’t prepared to take the risk of spending his night at a total dud of a party. Also, to get to the fun ‘vomiting out of the windows’ part of a symposium, you have to suffer through the sober orations in the beginning. It feels like a more solid bet to join the already drunk revellers who have somehow press-ganged the ritual _phallophoroi_ to give up the ox-cart carrying one of the massive bronze penises. He catches up with them through the Ionian gate, and up the gentle slopes of the Hill of the Muses, where he finds that they have taken the proper Dionysian spirit to heart. There is a huge bonfire - a forest fire waiting to happen if ever there was one - and the party is really getting into swing around midnight. Loud music and singing, orgiastic dances and wine in the firelight. Now _this_ is an after-party.

A fully naked woman presses her wine cup into his hand as she heads into the woods with a man dressed as a goat. Crawly drains is quickly, and then has another one. He moves closer to the fire and the humans, who have clearly forgotten how to keep their hands to themselves. After a third cup the grasping hands no longer bother him, and after a fourth he’s beginning to enjoy himself. The air is charged with the sort of temptation that humans are perfectly capable of creating on their own, and it makes Crawly’s job a doddle. A whispered suggestion here, a gentle nudge there. The gentle nudges lead to a very gratifying chain reaction, like tipping the first domino in a carefully balanced row without having to do any of the actual balancing. He’s not necessarily needed, sinning would _definitely_ happen without him, but he might as well get the credit. He’s not one to make it hard for himself.

A familiar laugh makes its way through the loud voices and music, and Crawly quickly scans the edge of the clearing. Aziraphale is standing with a group of young men with a cup of wine in his hand. He’s sweating a bit, dishevelled, and looks almost naked when he’s only wearing his chiton without the himation. Crawly’s only wearing his chiton as well, but he’s made it a point to give off a naked vibe even when fully clothed, so it doesn’t really change things.

He sidles up to the angel.

“Imagine bumping into you here, on the Hill of the _Muses_. Enjoying the party?”

“Crawly!” Aziraphale seems genuinely and enthusiastically pleased to see him. Crawly had expected at least some embarrassment, or half-baked excuses for being caught in the middle of Dionysian cult - had hoped for it, in fact. But Aziraphale seems perfectly at ease. “Marvellous party!”

Aziraphale extricates himself from the laughing young men, and joins Crawly a little way away. When he’s not immediately forthcoming, Crawly raises an eyebrow and nods towards the group.

“Oh, that’s Aristophanes and some of his friends,” Aziraphale answers the implied question.

It’s quite clear who of them is the champion writer from how his friends move around him, but Crawly has discovered another button to push.

“Which one of them?” he asks facetiously.

Aziraphale hesitates and is just about to point him out, before he notices Crawly’s smirk and lets his hand drop with a sheepish grin. Oh, he is definitely blushing now.

“Is it the pretty one?” Crawly prompts, because this is simply too much fun.

Aziraphale rolls his eyes in an attempt to appease Crawly, but quickly realises that Crawly isn’t going to drop it before he says the words. “Yes, he’s the pretty one.”

Crawly had expected a little niggle of jealousy, but finds only amused curiosity in its place.

Aziraphale’s hand lands on his shoulder, a surprisingly normal touch among the more lewd touching that has characterised the last hour of the party, but it still feels more intimate than any of them. Crawly gets the distinct feeling of not being able to feel the bottom of the pool anymore. He knows _exactly_ where the lines go with Aziraphale. He knows how hard he can rub up against them to elicit the giggles, the blushes, the awkward fidgeting that amuse him to no end. But touching is far beyond the boundaries he has charted. The unspoken agreement is that Crawly flirts _at_ Aziraphale, not _with_ him.

“Are you working?” Aziraphale asks, lowering his voice and leaning a bit closer to make himself heard over the music and the roaring fire. “Tempting, I mean. I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

“I thought that was exactly what you were supposed to do. Thwart my wiles and so on?”

“Yes, well, yes, technically. But they’re really enjoying themselves.” He looks around with that stupid _loving_ look of his.

“Yes, that’s the point. You’re not supposed to want them to enjoy themselves - or each other.”

“Oh, shush, of course I want them to enjoy themselves. Responsibly, of course,” he adds like it shouldn’t really need to be said. “What does it feel like?”

“What, sex?” Crawly pulls back unnecessarily abruptly. He can’t have Aziraphale touching him and talking about sex, that’s not how this goes. He must have missed something. He clears his throat, trying to rid himself of the constricting sensation. As he hears himself sputter, he is embarrassed to realise that he is flustered. No, absolutely not, he’s not flustered. Can’t be. He’s just caught on the back foot. He just needs some distance to regroup.

Aziraphale doesn’t seem put off, but he reformulates himself. “No, Temptation. I just - I wanted - I just really want to know what they’re feeling right now.”

Crawly finds the question difficult to process.

“Well, _I_ don’t know that, do I! It’s not exactly something I can do to myself. You should ask, ehh,” he looks around the clearing for someone he recognises, “ask her, or those three, there, under the oak.”

“No, I mean...” Aziraphale seems to be looking for the right words, but doesn’t really seem to find them. As Aziraphale struggles, Crawly finds solid ground under his feet again.

“Do you want me to Tempt _you_?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Yes. Opposition research, of course.”

“Of course.” Crawly nods solemnly. “Can’t do it, though.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t _possibly_ risk sullying your purity and innocence and - “ Crawly is unable to keep a straight face. “I would if I could, but it’s a ‘free-will’ thing. And we don’t have that. I mean, we _do_ , but y’know, not _really_. So I could tempt you, but I can’t Tempt you.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Temptation would be that.” Crawly waves his hand generally in the direction of the writhing bodies under the oak. “And temptation would be, I dunno, flirting, showing a bit of skin, stuff like that. You wouldn’t feel, y’know, the inescapable draw to your own destruction.”

“I wouldn’t?”

Is that disappointment in his voice?

“Would you like to?” Crawly asks doubtfully.

“I...” Aziraphale begins, but the sound just remains hanging in the air.

“Also, in my experience, and believe me, it’s extensive, the -“

“Then tempt me. Lower case.”

Crawly obviously can’t take the invitation seriously, that would be insane. But this is a new flirty line of joking he can’t not indulge in. He likes the angel a bit tipsy. He’s looking forward to finding out where the new lines are, how far he can push before Aziraphale blushes and demurs. He reaches up for one of the penorai pins holding the shoulders of the chiton up, and unpins the right one. A bit of shoulder feels safe. That should be enough skin for a blush, at least, he figures and watches Aziraphale watch the black linen fall from his shoulder.

There is a brief flash of eye contact where it becomes very clear that Crawly has completely misread the situation. The next thing he knows, Aziraphale’s face crashes into him, and Crawly has to fumble for a nearby tree not to be bowled over. There’s a hand around the back of his head, fingers in his hair and lips on his, hard and urgent, and Crawly barely has the wherewithal to reciprocate before Aziraphale can interpret it as a rebuff. He smells like wine and smoke and sweat, and it’s absolutely impossible to resist. There’s a brief touch of tongues, that sends a jolt of electricity through Crawly. Suddenly it’s all so real, so very possible, and aimless flirting turns into something that allows action.

This is definitely not the way he had imagined this happening (and oh, had he imagined it), but he’s not going to turn it down. He lets go of of the tree, but finds his hands hovering uncertainly at a safe distance from Aziraphale’s body. Where could he possibly touch him? The waist seems safe: it’s clothed, not overtly sexual, while at the same time more confident than the shoulder. He places his hands on Aziraphale’s sides, gently brushing against the silk of the chiton, because _of course_ it’s silk. But it’s so thin and soft and smooth that he might as well not have been wearing anything at all, and the tantalising softness of the angel underneath makes him grip tighter, pulling himself closer, wanting to feel it with his entire body. It doesn’t take long before he has to awkwardly angle his hips away from Aziraphale, because if he lets on exactly how hard he is right now, he might crash headfirst into one of the ever-moving boundaries.

Aziraphale’s hands let go of his face, move down and grasp his hips, pulling them against his own. The friction against his erection provides an entirely unsatisfactory second of relief, but it’s the feeling of Aziraphale’s hard cock against his thigh that really does him in. His arousal slips through his fingers, and careers ahead into a visceral need. Aziraphale holds his hips in place, almost like he had been anticipating the graceless, involuntary bucking motion.

“Fuck,” Crawly moans, breaking the kiss to draw a deep, ragged breath.

“Should we...?” Aziraphale asks slightly breathless, before letting the sentence trail off with a nod towards the trees.

Crawly opens his mouth to answer with something saucy and scandalous, but his brain has stalled, gets no traction at all, and leaves him gaping instead. “Yeah, alright then.”

Without letting go of each other, they stumble backwards in the darkness, bumping against trees and tripping over roots and rocks. Finally Crawly backs up hard against a large boulder with groan of pain that quickly turns to a surprised moan of pleasure when Aziraphale presses up against him, kissing his neck and hands firmly gripping his thighs and slowly moving _upwards_ underneath his chiton. He can feel the faint vibration of a stifled moan against his skin, before Aziraphale quickly drops to his knees in front of him. In the semi-dark of the woods, he can only just make out the tuft of white hair now around the height of his waist.

“Hold this,” Aziraphale instructs him, and hands him the hem of his own chiton, and the cold night air makes him feel aggressively exposed, even though he knows the visibility is minimal.

“You don’t have to -“ Crawly begins to protest awkwardly.

Aziraphale just chuckles like it’s a mildly amusing joke, and leans in to kiss Crawly’s stomach, only slightly off from his navel. The saliva chills quickly when he moves to place a kiss an inch lower, again and again, before he reaches the top of his thigh, where his hands are holding Crawly in place. Next thing, he can feel Aziraphale’s tongue against the tip of his penis, and it’s so warm, so soft, so wet and so perfect that his knees threaten to give out.

“Shit,” he groans, and inhales sharply when Aziraphale takes him in his mouth properly.

The contrast to the cold March night makes the mouth feel almost painfully hot, but it couldn’t feel better. One hand continues stroking his thigh, while the other carefully moves up and grips the base of his cock and steers it deeper into the warm mouth. So much for boundaries.

In his extensive fantasies, this is generally the part where elaborate scenarios turns more into fragmented snippets of filthy imagery, framed with a thrumming white-out of pleasure and reality restricting itself to the physical carnality of it. Needless to say, the fantasies are generally not very long when he has reached this point. He should focus, he should make a concerted effort to memorise this feeling, because he _will_ revisit it later. But he’s slightly too drunk for concentration, in fact, he’s just drunk enough for his corporation to feel like it’s half a size too big and he’s not in full control of it. Aziraphale’s enthusiasm for the task has thrown him for a further loop. He’s clearly done this before. When he lets off for a second, Crawly lets out an indecorous whimper.

“Alright?” Aziraphale asks without letting go of his cock, mouth still so close that Crawly can feel his breath on him.

“Yes, alright,” Crawly manages to get out with considerable effort.

There is a slight pause, Aziraphale removes the hand from Crawly’s thigh, and it vanishes in the darkness. Then the grip on his cock shifts and Aziraphale takes him all the way in, much deeper than before, until he can feel the angel’s lips around the base. He lets out a broken moan. This is what he wanted, this is something he had pictured many times over the centuries, he knows he should savour it because he doesn’t dare hope that this is a mistake the angel will make again, but thoughts keep swirling and tangling in his mind: firstly, where did the hand go? Is Aziraphale touching himself at the same time? That idea is so arousing that he accidentally presses even deeper into the warm mouth around him, eliciting a moan from Aziraphale in response. Which in turn leads on to reoccurring thought number two: the angel is clearly showing off. The bastard.

Just as Crawly is about to call him out on it, the mystery of the missing hand is cleared up when two fingers coated in slightly too cold saliva press up just behind his balls and move upwards until they hold still against his anus. For a fraction of a second, Crawly wonders if he’s asking for permission, and angles his hips ever so slightly to signal that it’s more than fine, it’s exactly what he wants. But the fingers move with him and remain only gently pressed against him.He’s teasing him, the fucker. He wants him to say the words. Well, turnabout is fair play, Crawly has to hand it to him.

“ _Yes_!” Crawly hates how eager and needy he sounds, but fuck it, he _is_ eager and needy. “Yes, put your fingers in me. Please. Pretty please.”

When the fingers finally breach him, Crawly exhales sharply. He’d been expecting a second or two to adjust to it, but instead Aziraphale keeps the pressure up, until both fingers are all the way inside him, and the stretch is only just on the right side of uncomfortable. Crawly gets a sudden urge to get a slap and his hair pulled, but manages to keep his mouth shut. He’s fairly certain that would cross a boundary. It feels like scratching an itch, and for a couple of seconds it’s the best thing in the world. But the itch keeps moving, and it doesn’t take long before Crawly has to confront the fact that he’s going to need the angel to fuck him, and it’d have to be really soon if it’s going to happen at all. But first, just a couple of second of enjoying the slow, wet mouth on his cock. When Aziraphale begins to slide his fingers in and out ever so gently it takes every ounce of self-control to first will away the orgasm that is burgeoning somewhere at the end of his spine, and then physically push Aziraphale from him.

“Stop it, stop it,” he gasps and roughly grips the base of his cock to regain some sort of control of his body.

“What’s the matter?” Aziraphale asks bewildered, and Crawly doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed that he can’t see his face in the dark.

“I want you to fuck me.”

For a second he imagines that the considered stillness is Aziraphale hesitating, and he wants to stop him from having heard the words, wants to pretend he never said them. _It was a joke!_

“If you’d like,” he adds after a breath too long to soften the request.

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale answers very politely and begins to get up from the ground.

“No you can stay down there,” Crawly stops him. “Just lie down on your back.”

He can’t really see much, but he hears the faint rustle of silk and movement on the ground.

“Is it comfortable?”

“Not really,” Aziraphale laughs. “But it’ll do.”

“Don’t worry, this isn’t going to take long,” Crawly concedes with a laugh.

He gets down on the ground and fumbles for Aziraphale’s warm legs. Crawly can’t help but take a few extra seconds, just moving his hands up his legs, getting a bit grabby as he clambers on top of him. The ground is hard and cold under his knees as he settles them on either side of Aziraphale’s hips.

Crawly conjured up a bottle of oil with a snap, and quickly oils himself up before reaching down to stroke Aziraphale. He doesn’t know why a part of him is surprised that Aziraphale is as hard as he is, he had felt it before, but it feels so antithetical to everything else he knows about him. It would definitely ruin the lines of his clothes, for one.

With these only perfunctory preparations, he lines Aziraphale’s cock up to him and sinks down on it.

Aziraphale’s hands grab onto his thighs and stays him a bit. “Wait, is this okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” Crawly grits out, easing himself down. The shifting of positions managed to push away the most burning arousal, but as he’s slowly taking in the angel, it comes rushing back again in full force. But the keening noise Aziraphale makes when he bottoms out makes him fairly certain that he’s not far off either.

Just as Crawly’s about to start moving, Aziraphale grabs his hips and holds him in place, but the fullness and stretch is too much to just sit with and Crawly feels like he is about to explode, and not in a good way.

“Ngk, you have to let go,” Crawly grunts, and can hear the pain in his own voice.

Aziraphale’s hands fly away from him like he’d burned him. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, I-“ he begins, but needs to shift a little so he doesn’t sound like he’s in pain. “I didn’t mean you can’t touch me, just not, y’know, then.”

The hands very tentatively come back, but are now placed far down on his thighs instead. Crawly begins moving up and down, at first slowly, but fairly quickly picks up the pace as his body adjusts and finds a rhythm. From his sounds, Aziraphale seems to be enjoying it as well, but his hands stay resolutely just above Crawly’s knees. Crawly grabs his right hand and places it on his cock instead. He takes Aziraphale’s gasp as a positive sound, although that’s largely conjuncture at this point. He starts stroking, first measured and firm strokes, but fairly quickly they grow distracted, staggered and rough, which, while less pleasurable, is far more arousing. The inevitable pressure of an orgasm is slowly mounting again, quicker and harder than before.

“I think I’m gonna come,” Crawly croaks out, voice dry and brittle.

“Please!” The word emerges from a bitten off moan, and the hand on Crawly’s thigh grasps tighter.

Crawly grinds down hard on Aziraphale’s cock and comes with a deep gasp of relief, spilling over Aziraphale’s hand and stomach. He has a fleeting moment of worry that he’s stained the silk. He quickly grips Aziraphale’s wrist to still his hand, and then he can feel the cock inside of him jerk, and Aziraphale tense and shudder.

It goes against every fibre of his body, but Crawly manages to stop himself from collapsing on top of Aziraphale, and instead rolls off him gracelessly, stretching his stiff legs. He gets to his feet quickly, legs still a bit unsteady from the orgasm, and helps Aziraphale up from the ground.

“Thank you,” Aziraphale says, still a bit out of breath. Crawly isn’t sure if he’s being thanked for helping him up or for the sex, but he’s fine with either.

“I’ll just sit down for a second,” Crawly says with a yawn and reaches back for the boulder. It’ll do as a backrest. Aziraphale sit down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. He doesn’t really know why, but it surprises him.

“That was lovely,” Aziraphale says.

Crawly can hear him breathing, still a little louder than normal, and he can feel the smell of sex hang around them like a fog. He has to smell it too. The smell of saliva and semen drying on skin. He hums in agreement. It was lovely.

“M’just gonna rest my eyes for a bit,” Crawly murmurs and gently rests his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The wine and the sex has left his body soft and loose and he remembers imagining falling into sleek, soft coils just before he falls asleep.

* * *

Somewhere far off, presumably to the east, the sun rises between the trees, dappling the ground with bright light. Crawly instinctively throws a hand out to feel for Aziraphale where he had been when he fell asleep. He is both relieved and disappointed to find himself alone at the ground under the boulder. He isn’t entirely sure where they stand after last night, but this at least opens the comfortable door of pretending that it never happened. He feels woefully unprepared for any kind of conversation about what went down. He will, however, miss the company when he trudges back to Athens alone.

Crawly tries to stretch some of the stiffness from his joints. A full night on the ground is not conducive to a good morning, cold- or warm-blooded. He shifts a little to edge into the sunlight when he spots Aziraphale, unmistakable, sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree in the dawn sunlight in the clearing, looking over the still smouldering fire, and the many, many bodies strewn out at the edge of the clearing and surrounding woods. Crawly gets to his feet with a stifled groan and heads for the clearing, at first shambling, but slowly progressing to unsteady, shuffling and finally back to a normal saunter as he gets his body under control. The short walk makes him realise that they weren’t very far into the woods at all last night.

“Morning, angel,” he says with a bit of a wave. The Morning After is never a comfortable affair, but he is very determined to power through it. Get back in the saddle, as it were, though not physically for another day or so.

Of all possible reactions, he has not expected Aziraphale to hiss at him. He is surprised enough to take a step back before realising that he was being shushed. Aziraphale raises a finger to his lips and places a hand on the tree next to him, inviting Crawly to join him.

“Don’t wake them,” he admonishes when Crawly grunts a bit when he sits down, bending too many joints.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he lies and suppresses the strong urge to bang some pots and pans around the clearing. Just the thought sends a thrill of demonic pleasure up his spine.

“Did you sleep well?” Aziraphale asks in the polite tone of someone who has never slept on the ground.

“Yes, very,” Crawly mutters and tries to work the crick out of his neck.

“Look at them,” Aziraphale says fondly in a hushed tone. “Do you think they enjoyed themselves?”

Well, Crawly certainly enjoyed himself. But he looks at the naked people in the clearing. They are beginning to stir in the sunlight. They will feel cold, hungover, and then the rapidly creeping regret of bad decisions made in the heat of the moment. For some of them, last night will have disastrous consequences - that was the whole point. Crawly just hopes that he isn’t one of them. He finds that he can’t really bring himself to answer.

“I think they did,” Aziraphale concludes on his own. 

Crawly just hums vaguely. He can let Aziraphale think that. At least it makes him fairly sure that Aziraphale isn’t feeling the creeping regret. Maybe they don’t have to pretend last night didn’t happen, maybe they can just let it be A Thing That Happened.

“Olive?” Aziraphale asks and holds out a small glazed bowl of green, herbed olives.

“Where d’you get that?”

“Pocket.”

“You have pockets in that thing?” Crawly nods towards the rumpled chiton.

“Shh,” Aziraphale hisses and placed the small bowl on the stone between them, even nudging it towards Crawly. He is unexpectedly touched by the gesture, in spite of not being quite as convinced by the whole ‘eating physical matter’ thing.

“Thanks,” he says and wonders how he can accept the offer while at the same time not having to eat a fucking olive. His hand hovers over the bowl, but Aziraphale demonstratively looks the other way to let him off the hook.

People are slowly getting to their feet and shuffling off between the trees, a few looking very confused indeed. Some, Crawly notices, leave holding hands. Maybe some of them enjoyed themselves for real. Naked Lady and Goat Man seem to be two of them. Good for you, Goat Man.

“Do you know what humans have to do to olives before they can eat them?” Aziraphale asks, holding up one of them like it’s a work of art.

“Can’t say I’ve invested much interest in the process.”

“They take the unripe fruit, which they can’t eat, and put it in lye, which they can’t eat, and then put them in brine, which they can’t eat, and then they get an olive, which they can eat, but have to _learn_ to enjoy.”

“What, aren’t they any good?” Crawly asks, and is suddenly very tempted to try one, mostly from some sort of misplaced curiosity. He picks one up, pops it in his mouth, chews down and promptly spits it out again. “Nope, that’s not worth the effort.”

“I mean, we didn’t even mean for them to eat the fruit when we made the trees,” Aziraphale continues, undeterred and somewhat misty-eyed. “We meant them to use them for oil, but somehow they figured out how to not only make them edible, but to make them something... special. They’re remarkably resourceful, aren’t they?”

Crawly hums in vague agreement. They certainly are tenacious buggers. He has always been able to see the appeal of humans, they made for great entertainment. They were funny and terrible and very, very weird - seriously, the other day he sat through a play about someone fucking their own mother, no demonic intervention needed. But he can’t say he completely understands the fondness in Aziraphale’s voice. He watches Aziraphale first look closely at the olive, then smile to himself before quickly putting it in his mouth. It’s almost like he’s in love.

Something small and black uncoils in the pit of Crawly’s stomach, a new and unwelcome sensation. His mouth has gone dry, and he tries to bat the feeling away. So _this_ is what jealousy feels like. He doesn’t like it.

They don’t speak about what happened, but they walk back to Athens together. They sit next to each other in the theatre when the winners are announced. Aristophanes gets second place in the comedic category, and Philocles wins for his tragedy. The consensus is that Sophocles was robbed. Crawly has got a lot of things he wished for, like a displeased chorus of theatre fans, and he’s finally learnt more about Aziraphale. Like what his mouth feels like on his cock, what he sounds like when he comes, and that he loves humans more than he could ever love anything else. Crawly feels like he could really do without this knowledge.

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, 427 b.c. was a weird year when A LOT of stuff happened - and I decided to leave out the part where this is set in the middle of the Peloponnesian War. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles didn’t win in its category, and neither did Aristophanes’ debut (the title of which is lost).


End file.
